Book 2: Chapter 5: (1)

Exploring the dungeon, heading for the surface of the other world

「Oh, Shizuku, that feels so good! There, right there – no, a little lower…」

「Yes, Master. Here?」

「Yeah, that’s just right. Oh, it feels so gooooood…」

Two days had passed since we had got back Ria’s mithril sword.

「Is anywhere else itchy?」

「No, I’m good. It feels really nice when you shampoo my hair, Shizuku.」

I’d really wanted to go to the other world quickly to help Enami, but it hadn’t worked out with the shifts at my part-time job.

While Deet was travelling back to the surface and bringing those two back here again, I’d been conscientious about going to work, so I’d been given the week off starting from tomorrow.

So, tomorrow, the big adventure begins.

I hope no-one completes the Enami Quest before then…… Well, I’m not really worried about that.

Deet was obsessed with the levelling-up clicking game. Once an hour, she’d get angry that 「The food’s just been taken by Enami and the orc again!」

Judging by this, the orc seems pretty strong, and I don’t think there’s much need to worry about Enami.

「Master, I’m going to wash your back, too.」

「Okay, thanks.」

Incidentally, the reason I was in the bath with Shizuku was because she’d acquired some weird knowledge from an adult dōjinshi again.

I often bathed – or rather, took a shower – before going to bed. But when I’d come back from my part-time job, Shizuku had immediately asked me, 「Master, would you like to have dinner? Or have a bath? Or perhaps……」

Not only that, but I was living with women, after all, and recently I’d been coming back from my part-time job covered in sweat.

Well, I wasn’t counting on having Shizuku in the bath with me.

「Master, shall I wash your front as well?」

「Oh, no, I’ll be fine.」

「I see……」Shizuku said dejectedly.

Even if it upsets her, I have to decline.

Shizuku was using her own body to wash my head and back, but even that made me feel weird at times. It transcended species, let alone gender……

If she were to wash my front, I wasn’t sure I could stop myself from getting excited.

「Of course! I’ll turn into Lady Ria or Miss Deet. Could I wash your front then?」

Wh-what are you saying?!

「Which would you prefer? Ma-s-ter.」

She must’ve learnt this way of speaking from a dōjinshi,too. It was impossible to stay calm.

「Oh, I-I-I-I-I-I’ll get in the tub first.」

Shizuku seemed scared of the crisis happening ‘down there’. Despite the fact that she caused it……

Every time it went back to normal, I took a cold shower, pressing my hands together in thanks like in a certain manga. Recently, I’d been trying to do that every day. One of these days, I’ll awaken a special ability of some kind…

The cold water and the act of pressing my hands together somehow got me back to a state that wouldn’t frighten Shizuku, and I joined her in the bath.

「Master!」

Shizuku liked to climb onto my chest, half-floating in the water.

She jiggled happily.

「Well, this is heavenly…」

I would have stayed in the bath with Shizuku for a long time, but Deet began to complain that she was hungry.

I suppose I’ll have to get out soon.

♦︎ ♦︎ ♦︎

「I wonder what’s for dinner tonight ♪」

As I showed Shizuku the new menu and we got down to making dinner, Deet appeared.

「Today we’re having chicken hotpot.」

「Yay! I’ve never eaten that before, right? All Japanese food tastes good…」

「Yep. We have to eat nutritious food so we’re prepared for the dungeon.」

「You don’t have to worry about that. Ria and I will be there.」

Deet seemed to be looking out for me in her own way.

「But being able to eat tasty food is good, right?」

「That’s true.」

「By the way, where’s Ria?」                                 

「I think she’s in the big room in the dungeon, doing sword training.」

Ria had been in top form since the mithril sword had been returned to her.

She actively went out and hunted the monsters that came into the big room when Deet was doing her levelling-up game. She was in perfect health. She seemed to have completely overcome her trauma.

「Okay. Dinner will be ready soon, so I’ll go and call her.」

It’s so inconvenient that people from the other world – including Ria and Deet – can’t come back here once they’ve gone into the dungeon unless I’m with them. Well, it can’t be helped.

「We’re home!」

「Welcome back!」

When Ria and I returned, the hotpot was already out on the table. Shizuku must have put it there.

The four of us sat together around the hotpot. Well, three of us sat, and one of us jiggled. But either way, we were all together.

「Let’s eat!」

Above all, new menus – a regular event for us – were an opportunity for me to demonstrate how to eat different food. I dipped the chicken and vegetables lightly in the sake that I’d poured into a little dish, and ate them.

「Mmm. Delicious!」

Ria and Deet both copied me and ate some. Their chopstick skills had greatly improved.

「Mmm, it’s so tasty! Chicken is amazing.」

「The vegetables and the white mushrooms taste great, too!」

「They’re enoki mushrooms. Don’t you have them in your world?」

「No, we don’t have anything like them.」

It seemed that there were no enoki mushrooms in the other world. Apparently, Ria particularly liked the meat, and Deet particularly liked the mushrooms and vegetables.

「Master, please allow me to eat a little, too.」

「Oh, sorry!」

When we were eating something like hotpot around a table like this, Shizuku couldn’t eat unless she was in human form.

Since it was difficult to eat while looking at another version of ourselves, the three of us took it in turns to feed Shizuku.

Today it was my turn.

「Here goes. This is chicken.」

When I put the chicken inside her, it got smaller little by little until it disappeared, perhaps because she was digesting it.

「It’s soooo tasty!」

Maybe Shizuku prefers meat to vegetables.

Be that as it may, I’m glad I was able to tell Ria the truth. Although I did it to make sure that she could stay here without feeling as if she was troubling me, if I’d gone on pretending that I was a wise sage, we wouldn’t have been able to relax and eat dinner like this.

「By the way, even if we hurry, it will probably take us about two days to get through the dungeon and reach the surface. What rations are we going to take with us?」Ria asked.

Deet also seemed to be curious about that.

「Yeah. In our world, it’s normal to take things like dried bread, jerky, and dried fruit, but what rations do you take when you’re adventuring in Japan?」

Well, we don’t really go adventuring in Japan. But there are plenty of things which keep for a long time and also taste good.

「Ria and I will take on the monsters, and you’ll carry the rations, right, Thor?」

「Yeah.」

「We’d better take stuff that isn’t too heavy, right?」

「I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’m looking forward to what we bring.」

♦︎ ♦︎ ♦︎

The next morning, we gathered in our travelling gear outside the entryway. For the first time in a long while, I locked the entrance door.

Now that I thought about it, I’d always come running straight back to my apartment, and there was always someone at home, so I hadn’t been locking my door.

Deet looked at me with a wondering expression.

「What did you just do?」

「I locked the apartment door.」

「Huh. To me, it just looked like you were doing something to the stone wall.」

It seemed that, to people from the other world, even the door to the entrance hall of the apartment block looked like a stone wall.

It might be inconvenient for Ria and Deet, but it does mean that people from the other world can’t just come in of their own accord. If they could, my room would instantly turn into a rest stop for adventurers from the other world who’d exhausted themselves in the dungeon.

「That’s true. I have a duplicate key – would one of you mind looking after it for me? Then it’ll be fine even if I drop mine somewhere.」

If I lost the keys, we’d only be able to get back in by bashing down the door to the entryway of the apartment block. For safety, I decided to have one of them keep hold of the duplicate key.

「Sure thing. I’ll take care of it.」

Deet took the key from me and tried to push it into her cleavage.

「Hold up. Isn’t it weird to put it there? What would happen if it fell?」

What the ****, Deet?

「This is the safest place for it. It’s okay, I promise I won’t lose it.」

I snatched the key back off Deet and handed it to Ria.

「Ria, look after this.」

「Okay, leave it to me!」